Solution Manual for Economics Today The Micro View 18th Edition by
Miller
Link full download: https://www.testbankfire.com/download/solution-manual-for-economicstoday-the-micro-view-18th-edition-by-miller/
1-1. Define economics. Explain briefly how the economic way of thinking—in terms of rational,
self-interested people responding to incentives—relates to each of the following situations.
(See pages 2, 6–7.)
a. A student deciding whether to purchase a text- book for a particular class
b. Government officials seeking more funding for mass transit through higher taxes
c. A municipality taxing hotel guests to obtain funding for a new sports stadium
Economics is the study of how individuals allocate limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants.
a. Among the factors that a rational, self-interested student will take into account are her
income, the price of the textbook, her anticipation of how much she is likely to study the
textbook, and how much studying the book is likely to affect her grade.
b. A rational, self-interested government official will, for example, recognize that higher taxes
will raise more funds for mass transit while making more voters, who have limited resources,
willing to elect other officials.
c. A municipality’s rational, self-interested government will, for instance, take into account
that higher hotel taxes will produce more funds if as many visitors continue staying at hotels,
but that the higher taxes will also discourage some visitors from spending nights at hotels.
1-3. Does the phrase “unlimited wants and limited resources” apply to both a low-income
household and a middle-income household? Can the same phrase be applied to a very highincome household? (See page 2.)
Because wants are unlimited, the phrase applies to very high-income households as well as lowand middle-income households. Consider, for instance, a household with a low income and
unlimited wants at the beginning of the year. The household’s wants will still remain unlimited if it
becomes a high-income household later in the year.
1-5. One of your classmates, Sally, is a hardworking student, serious about her classes, and
conscientious about her grades. Sally is also involved, however, in volunteer activities and an
extracurricular sport. Is Sally displaying rational behavior? Based on what you read in this
chapter, construct an argument supporting the conclusion that she is. (See pages 6–8.)
Sally is displaying rational behavior if all of these activities are in her self-interest. For example,
Sally likely derives intrinsic benefit from volunteer and extracurricular activities and may believe
that these activities, along with good grades, improve her prospects of finding a job after she
completes her studies. Hence, these activities are in her self-interest even though they reduce
some available study time.
1-7. Explain, in your own words, the rationality assumption, and contrast it with the assumption
of bounded rationality proposed by adherents of behavioral economics. (See pages 6–7, 10–
11.)
The rationality assumption states that people do not intentionally make choices that leave them
worse off. The bounded rationality hypothesis suggests that people are almost, but not
completely, rational.

1-9. Why does the assumption of bounded rationality suggest that people might use rules of thumb
to guide their decision making instead of considering every possible choice available to them?
(See page 10.)

Suppose that there is a change in the environment that a person faces, and the person adjusts to this
change as predicted by the rationality assumption. If the new environment becomes predictable,
then the individual who actually behaves as predicted by the traditional rationality assumption may
settle into behavior that appears to involve repetitive applications of a rule of thumb.
1-11. For each of the following approaches that an economist might follow in examining a decisionmaking process, identify whether the approach relies on the rationality assumption or on the
assumption of bounded rationality. (See page 10.)
a. An economic study of the number of online searches that individuals conduct before
selecting a particular item to purchase online presumes that people are interested only in
their own satisfaction, pursue their ultimate objectives, and consider every relevant
option.
b. An economist seeking to predict the effect that an increase in a state’s sales tax rate will
have on consumers’ purchases of goods and services presumes that people are limited in
their ability to process information about how the tax-rate increase will influence the
after-tax prices those consumers will pay.
c. To evaluate the impact of an increase in the range of choices that an individual confronts
when deciding among devices for accessing the Internet, an economic researcher makes
the assumption that the individual is unable to take into account every new Internetaccess option available to her.
a. Rationality assumption
b. Bounded rationality
c. Bounded rationality
1-13. Consider two models for estimating, in advance of an election, the shares of votes that will go
to rival candidates. According to one model, pollsters’ surveys of a randomly chosen set of
registered voters before an election can be used to forecast the percentage of votes that each
candidate will receive. The above model relies on the assumption that unpaid survey
respondents will give truthful responses about how they will vote and that they will actually
cast a ballot in the election. The other model uses prices of financial assets (legally binding
IOUs) issued by the Iowa Electronic Markets, operated by the University of Iowa, to predict
electoral outcomes. The final payments received by owners of these assets, which can be
bought or sold during the weeks and days preceding an election, depend on the shares of
votes the candidates actually end up receiving. This second model assumes that owners of
these assets wish to earn the highest possible returns, and it predicts that the market prices of
these assets provide an indication of the percentage of votes that each candidate will actually
receive on the day of the election. (See pages 8–9.)
a. Which of these two models for forecasting electoral results is more firmly based on the
rationality assumption of economics?
b. How would an economist evaluate which is the better model for forecasting electoral outcomes?
a. The model using prices from the Iowa Electronic Market is based more firmly on the
rationality assumption because people who trade assets on this exchange based on poor
forecasts actually experience losses. This gives them a strong incentive to make the best
possible forecasts. Unpaid respondents to opinion polls have less incentive to give truthful
answers about whether and how they will vote.
b. An economist would develop a means of evaluating whether prices in the Iowa Electronic
Market or results of opinion polls did a better job of matching actual electoral outcomes.

1-15. Based on your answer to Problem 1–14, categorize each of the following conclusions as
resulting from positive analysis or normative analysis. (See pages 11–12.)
a. A higher minimum wage will reduce employment opportunities for minimum wage
workers.
b. Increasing the earnings of minimum wage employees is desirable, and raising the
minimum wage is the best way to accomplish this.
c. Everyone should enjoy open access to health care at no explicit charge.
d. Heath-care subsidies will increase the consumption of health care.
a.
b.
c.
d.

Positive
Normative
Normative
Positive

2-1. Define opportunity cost. What is your opportunity cost of attending a class at 11:00 A.M.?
How does it differ from your opportunity cost of attending a class at 8:00 A.M.? (See pages
31–32.)
The opportunity cost of attending a class at 11:00 A.M. is the next-highest-valued use of that hour
of the day. Likewise, the opportunity cost of attending an 8:00 A.M. class is the next-highest-valued
use of that particular hour of the day. If you are an early riser, it is arguable that the opportunity
cost of the 8:00 A.M. hour is lower because you will already be up at that time, but you will have
fewer choices compared with the 11:00 A.M. hour when shops, recreation centers, and the like are
open. If you are a late riser, it may be that the opportunity cost of the 8:00 A.M. hour is higher
because you place a relatively high value on an additional hour of sleep in the morning.
2-3. You and a friend decide to spend $100 each on concert tickets. Each of you alternatively could
have spent the $100 to purchase a textbook, a meal at a highly rated local restaurant, or
several Internet movie downloads. As you are on the way to the concert, your friend tells you
that if she had not bought the concert ticket, she would have opted for a restaurant meal, and
you reply that you otherwise would have downloaded several movies. Identify the relevant
opportunity costs for you and your friend of the concert tickets that you purchased. Explain
briefly. (See pages 31–32.)
The opportunity cost is the cost of the single, next-highest-valued foregone alternative to the $100
spent on the concert ticket, which for your friend was a restaurant meal she otherwise could have
purchased and which for you was movie downloads that you otherwise could have bought.
2-5. Recently, a woman named Mary Krawiec attended an auction in Troy, New York. At the
auction, a bank was seeking to sell a foreclosed property: a large Victorian house suffering
from years of neglect in a neighborhood in which many properties had been on the market for
years yet remained unsold. Her $10 offer was the highest bid in the auction, and she handed
over a $10 bill for a title to ownership. Once she acquired the house, however, she became
responsible for all taxes on the property and for an overdue water bill of $2,000. In addition,
to make the house habitable, she and her husband devoted months of time and unpaid labor
to renovating the property. In the process, they incurred explicit expenses totaling $65,000.
Why do you suppose that the bank was willing to sell the house to Ms. Krawiec for only $10?
(Hint: Contemplate the bank’s expected gain, net of all explicit and opportunity costs, if it had
attempted to make the house habitable. (See pages 31–32.)

The bank apparently determined that the net gain that it anticipated receiving from trying to sell the
house to someone else, taking into account the opportunity cost of resources that the bank would
have had to devote to renovating the house, was less than $10.
2-7. Based on the information provided in Problem 2-6, what is the opportunity cost to this
student of allocating enough additional study time on economics to move her grade up from
a 90 to a 100? (See page 33.)
If the student allocates additional study time to economics in order to increase her score from 90
to 100, her biology score declines from 50 to 40, so the opportunity cost of earning 10 additional
points in economics is 10 fewer points in biology.
2-9. Construct a production possibilities curve for a nation facing increasing opportunity costs for
producing food and video games. Show how the PPC changes given the following events. (See
page 35.)
a. A new and better fertilizer is invented.
b. Immigration occurs, and immigrantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; labor can be employed in both the
agricultural sector and the video game sector.
c. People invent a new programming language that is much less costly to code and is more
memory-efficient.
d. A heat wave and drought result in a 10 percent decrease in usable farmland.

2-11. In response to Senator Creighton’s statement reported in Problem 2-10, Senator Long replies,
“We must remain at our current production combination if we want to be able to produce
more consumption goods in the future.” Of the labeled points on the diagram, which one
could depict the future production combination Senator Long has in mind? (See page 35.)
Point D
2-13. A nation’s residents can allocate their scarce resources either to producing consumption
goods or to producing human capital—that is, providing themselves with training and
education. (See pages 36–37.) The table at the top of next column displays the
production possibilities for this nation:
a. Suppose that the nation’s residents currently produce combination A. What is the
opportunity cost of increasing production of consumption goods by 10 units? By 60 units?
b. Does the law of increasing additional cost hold true for this nation? Why or why not?
Production
Combination
A
B
C
D
E
F
G

Units of
Consumption
Goods
0
10
20
30
40
50
60

Units of
Human Capital
100
97
90
75
55
30
0

a. If the nation’s residents increase production of consumption goods from 0 units to 10 units, the
opportunity cost is 3 units of human capital forgone. If the nation’s residents increase

production of consumption goods from 0 units to 60 units, the opportunity cost is 100 units of
human capital.
b. Yes, because successive 10-unit increases in production of consumption goods generate larger
sacrifices of human capital, equal to 3, 7, 15, 20, 25, and 30.
2-15. You can wash, fold, and iron a basket of laundry in two hours and prepare a meal in one
hour. Your roommate can wash, fold, and iron a basket of laundry in three hours and
prepare a meal in one hour. Who has the absolute advantage in laundry, and who has an
absolute advantage in meal preparation? Who has the comparative advantage in laundry, and
who has a comparative advantage in meal preparation? (See page 41.)
Because it takes you less time to do laundry, you have an absolute advantage in laundry. Neither
you nor your roommate has an absolute advantage in meal preparation. You require 2 hours to fold
a basket of laundry, so your opportunity cost of folding a basket of laundry is 2 meals. Your
roommate’s opportunity cost of folding a basket of laundry is 3 meals. Hence, you have a
comparative advantage in laundry, and your roommate has a comparative advantage in meal
preparation.
2-17. Using only the concept of comparative advantage, evaluate this statement: “A professor with
a Ph.D. in physics should never mow his or her own lawn, because this would fail to take into
account the professor’s comparative advantage.” (See page 41.)
It may be that the professor is very proficient at doing yard work relative to teaching and research
activities, so in fact the professor may have a comparative advantage in doing yard work.
3-1. Suppose that in a recent market period, the following relationship existed between the price of
tablet devices and the quantity supplied and quantity demanded.
Price

Quantity Demanded

Quantity Supplied

$330

100 million

40 million

$340

90 million

60 million

$350

80 million

80 million

$360

70 million

100 million

$370

60 million

120 million

Graph the supply and demand curves for tablet devices using the information in the table.
What are the equilibrium price and quantity? If the industry price is $340, is there a shortage
or surplus of tablet devices? How much is the shortage or surplus? (See pages 68–70.)
The equilibrium price is $350 per tablet device, and the equilibrium quantity is 80 million tablet
devices. At a price of $340 per tablet device, the quantity of tablet devices demanded is 90 million,
and the quantity of tablet devices supplied is 60 million. Hence, there is a shortage of 30 million
tablet devices at a price of $340 per tablet device.

Chapter 2
Scarcity and the World of Trade-Offs
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Overview

This chapter introduces the central concept of economics, scarcity. It is the existence of scarcity that
requires people to make choices, both individually and collectively. Along with the concept of scarcity,
the chapter introduces the tools that economists use to analyze choice. These are the concepts of
opportunity costs, trade- offs, and the production possibilities model. The production possibilities model
is used not only to analyze trade-offs but also to illustrate economic growth and the implications of an
inefficient use of resources. Specialization is introduced along with a discussion of the basis for trade,
comparative advantage.

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Learning Objectives

After studying this chapter students should be able to
•
•
•
•
•

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I.

2.1 Evaluate why everyone, whether poor or affluent, faces the problem of scarcity
2.2 Explain why the scarcity problem causes people to consider opportunity costs and trade-offs
among choices
2.3 Discuss why obtaining increasing increments of any particular good typically entails giving
up more and more units of other goods
2.4 Explain why the economy faces a trade-off between consumption goods and capital goods
2.5 Distinguish between absolute and comparative advantage

Outline
Scarcity: Scarcity is a situation in which the ingredients for producing the things that people
desire are insufficient to satisfy all wants at a zero price. It exists in all societies and at all income
levels because human wants exceed what can be produced with the limited resources and time that
nature makes available.
A. What Scarcity Is Not: Scarcity is not a shortage. It is also not poverty. High incomes do
not reduce scarcity.
B. Scarcity and Resources: Resources or factors of production are inputs used in the
production of things that people want. Production is any activity that results in the
conversion of resources into products that can be used in consumption.
1. Land: Land is often called the natural resource and consists of all the gifts of nature.
2. Labor: Labor is the human resource that includes all productive contributions made
by individuals who work and involves both mental and physical activities.

3. Physical Capital: Capital is all manufactured resources that are used for production. It
also includes improvements to natural resources, such as irrigation ditches.
4. Human Capital: The accumulated training and education workers receive that increases
their productivity.
5. Entrepreneurship: Human resources that perform the functions of organizing,
managing, and assembling the other factors of production to create and operate business
ventures and that take the risks associated with introducing new methods and other types
of new thinking that could lead to more monetary income.
Goods versus Economic Goods: All things from which individuals derive satisfaction
or happiness.
1. Economic Goods: Goods that are scarce. The quantity of such goods desired exceeds
the quantity that is available at a zero price.
2. Services: Mental or physical labor or help purchased by consumers. They can be viewed
as intangible goods.
Wants and Needs: Needs are not objectively definable. Perhaps the best way to view a need
is as an absolute necessity to stay alive. Wants refer to desired goods and are unlimited.

II.

Opportunity Cost, Trade-Offs, and Choices: Scarcity requires choices be made. When
one choice is made, then another is given up.
A. Valuing Forgone Alternatives: Only the individual can determine the value of each
choice that is available.
B. Opportunity Cost: The highest valued, next-best alternative that must be sacrificed for
the choice that was made. In economics, cost is always a forgone opportunity.
C. The World of Trade-Offs: Whenever you engage in any activity using any resource you are
trading off the use of that resource for one or more alternative uses. For example, the more
time that is devoted to studying economics, the less time that can be devoted to studying
mathematics. Thus, a higher grade in economics has a “cost” of a lower mathematics grade.
(See Figure 2-1.)
D. Graphical Analysis: How Figure 2-1 is set up is explained.
E. The Production Possibilities Curve (PPC): A curve representing the maximum possible
combinations of total output that could be produced assuming a fixed amount of resources of
a given quality.
1. Production Possibilities for Course Grades: A straight-line production possibilities
curve can show the opportunity cost of studying one more hour in one subject in terms of
a change in the grade of another subject. (See Figure 2-1.)
2. Measuring Trade-Offs Along a Production Possibilities Curve: A movement from
one point to another on the PPC shows that some of one good must be given up to
have more of another. (See Figure 2-1.)

III.

The Economic Choices a Nation’s People Face: The production possibilities curve does not
in practice have constant trade-offs of one good for another and is typically a curve that is
bowed outward. (See Figure 2-2.)
A. A Two-Good Example
B. Production Trade-Offs (See Figure 2-2.)
C. Assumptions Underlying the Production Possibilities Curve:
1. Resources are fully employed.

2. Production takes place over a specific time period—for example, one year.
3. Resources are fixed in both quantity and quality.
4. Technology does not change over this period of time.
a. Technology is defined as society’s pool of applied knowledge concerning how goods
and services can be produced.
Being off the Production Possibilities Curve: Any point outside the PPC cannot be reached
for the time period assumed. Any point inside the PPC is attainable, but resources are not
being fully utilized. (See Figure 2-2.)
Efficiency: The case in which a given level of inputs is used to produce the maximum output
possible. It is also a situation in which a given output is produced at a minimum cost. An
economy is efficient when it is on its PPC. An inefficient point is any point below the
production possibilities curve.
The Law of Increasing Additional Cost: The fact that the opportunity cost of additional
units of a good generally increases as society attempts to produce more of that good. This
accounts for the bowed-out shape of the production possibilities curve. (See Figure 2-3.)
1. Increasing Additional Costs: As society takes more and more resources and applies
them to the production of any one item, the opportunity cost increases for each
additional unit produced. This law is illustrated by the PPC being bowed outward.
2. Explaining the Law of Increasing Additional Cost: The more highly specialized
resources are, the more bowed outward the PPC will be.

2. Comparative Advantage in Sports: Babe Ruth had an absolute advantage in both
hitting and pitching baseball, but he had a comparative advantage in hitting home
runs than pitching.
Scarcity, Self-Interest, and Specialization: Persons who are making decisions that
further their self-interest will make choices that maximize the benefits net of opportunity
cost. The result is that they choose their comparative advantage and end up specializing.
The Division of Labor: The segregation of a resource into different specific tasks.
Comparative Advantage and Trade among Nations: The analysis of absolute
advantage, comparative advantage, and specialization applies equally to nations.
1. Trade among Regions: Specialization along lines of comparative advantage in
agricultural products in the plains states and industrial products in the northeastern
states and resulting trade between them allows each region to have higher incomes and
living standards. The result would be the same if the plains states and the northeastern
states were separate countries.
2. International Aspects of Trade: A producer in one part of the United States must adapt
to improvements in production along lines of comparative advantage by those in another
part. Producers in the United States will try to raise political barriers to trade with foreign
producers by arguing about “unfair” competition and loss of U.S. jobs.

Points to Emphasize

Graphing
Graphs are usually difficult for students to grasp. It is worthwhile spending some time going over basic
graphing techniques and terminology from the Appendix to Chapter 1 before getting into this chapter.
These pictures of relationships between variables may simply create confusion rather than clarify the
issue being presented. This confusion results when students are trying to figure out where the graph
comes from and what it means to refer to an inverse or positive relationship, while at the same time
trying to make sense of the actual economic analysis.

Scarcity
This is the central concept in economics. All economic analysis derives from this condition. Stress that
scarcity arises because at any given time people want more than their resources will allow them to
consume. The classic way to define scarcity is that wants are unlimited while resources are limited.
Resources or inputs are anything that can be used to produce things people want. It is important to stress
that scarcity is a relative concept. Even though not everyone has “unlimited” wants, they usually want
more than they can have at the moment. As income rises, so do wants. Studies by Simon Kuznets and
Milton Friedman provide evidence of this fact. Kuznets found that between 1869 and 1929, real national
income rose by a factor of 4, but the APC remained constant. Friedman reported in The Theory of the
Consumption Function that the APC remains constant even cross -sectionally as income goes from lower
levels to higher levels out of permanent income. Also, poverty in the United States is defined at levels that
would be considered affluent by people in most countries.

Resources
Resources or inputs are things that produce goods and services. At any given time, resources are fixed.
Generally, students will agree that this is so. Thus, at any given time, the amount of goods and services that
can be produced is limited. Over time, resources have increased. Indeed, 150 years ago petroleum was not
even a resource. Today, it is one of the most important resources. Advances in technology allow

society to use things that were previously not resources. Over time, an increase in resources does not allow
society to eliminate scarcity because, at any given time, resources are fixed while wants are not.

Choice
After the scarcity problem is analyzed, the problem of choice should be presented. Because of scarcity,
that is wants are greater than the means to satisfy these wants (resources), people are forced to choose
means of satisfying these wants. The concepts of opportunity cost, trade-offs, and the production
possibilities curve are introduced. These concepts are often difficult for students to grasp. The production
possibilities curve can be especially troublesome if actual numbers are not presented along with the
graph. A successful method of presenting this model is to use a table of combinations of two goods and
fully develop the model before introducing the graph.

Specialization and Comparative Advantage
After the tools for analyzing choice are developed, the chapter discusses specialization based on
comparative advantage. The relationship between these two is essential to develop because it is the basis
for exchange. A convincing case can be made on an intuitive level that if each person, region, and
country specializes in producing those things that they can produce relatively most efficiently, then it is
possible to increase output without increasing the total amount of resources. Then a more formal
demonstration can be given. A result of specialization is that trade occurs because each economic unit
ends up producing more of something than they want. In some cases, they produce something that they
do not consume at all. Higher incomes and living standards result from specialization and trade based on
comparative advantage.

Â&#x201E;

For Those Who Wish to Stress Theory

Production Possibilities Curve
An in-depth analysis of the production possibilities curve (PPC) can be especially valuable. In particular,
consider the following:
1.

Rigorously define the PPC: The PPC shows the maximum possible combinations of output of
two goods that can be produced by given resources and technology in a given time period.

2.

Consider the PPC when inputs are equally suited to producing both of the goods. The x and y
intercepts define the maximum quantities of each good that can be had. By connecting these two
points, a linear PPC is derived.

3.

Note that when some resources are better suited to either output, there are two important
differences in the PPC.
a. It is no longer linear. Instead, it is now concave to the origin due to increasing resource cost.
As we move from producing all x to all y, we initially produce units of y by releasing greater
percentages of resources more suited to production of y and smaller percentages of resources
more suited to the production of x. Since only 100 percent of resources exist, we must
eventually release greater percentages of y-suited resources and smaller percentages of xsuited resources to produce additional units of x.
b. The new PPC lies above the linear PPC except at the x and y intercepts because the new
curve accounts for the fact that inputs are more suitable to producing x or y.

ÂŠ2016 Pearson Education, Inc.

22

Miller • Economics Today, Eighteenth Edition

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Further Questions for Class Discussion

1.

In recent years, online news sites such as the ones at MSNBC and Yahoo! have designed a business
model in which they collect stories from the online pages of newspapers and wire services, such as
the Associated Press (AP), and allow free access to the articles for visitors to their Web sites. The
effect has been to decrease newspaper and wire service revenues and profits. As a result, newspapers
and organizations such as the AP have begun to charge or discuss plans to charge visitors to access
to their Web sites or to download their stories. Most users of the news sites of both the newspapers
and sites such as Yahoo! and MSN argue that they should not be charged for access to these
companies’ Web sites. An interesting question for students is why they believe that access to news
should be free. Then ask them if, in fact, any given news story is a free good or an economic good in
the sense that economists use those terms. Obviously, news stories are economic goods because
scarce resources are used to produce them. Because those resources have alternative uses, there is an
opportunity cost for using them to research and produce news stories.

2.

Does the federal government face a scarcity constraint? In discussions of the federal government,
each interest group wants more spent on its programs and speaks as if the government has virtually
unlimited funds for its program that has some supposed beneficial social impact. The problem is
that the government has fewer funds to allocate than are desired by all of the interest groups. Thus,
wants exceed the ability of the federal government to finance all of these wants—a clear case of
scarcity. The government does indeed face a scarcity constraint in the form of a limited budget with
which to accomplish its goals. The way this constraint is manifested is in wrangling about budget
priorities. The opportunity cost of more for one program means less for others.

3.

Students will usually agree that specialization along lines of comparative advantage and then trade
is beneficial. Point out Adam Smith’s statement in The Wealth of Nations that no “prudent master
[will] make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy.” Consider outsourcing where
American firms have foreign firms produce certain goods or services for them instead of producing
them in the United States. Ask why this is a problem if the foreign firms in fact have comparative
advantage. If trade along lines of comparative advantage allows U.S. companies to buy these goods
and services more cheaply than they can produce them, then why should we want to restrict trade
in them? There will be a reallocation of jobs in the United States as those displaced by outsourcing,
find jobs in activities in which the United States has a comparative advantage. This will usually
generate controversy.

4.

A major political issue revolves around tax policy and its effect on investment and economic
growth. How might increases in taxes on business profits affect economic growth? (Hint:
Investment is inversely related to expected after-tax profits on new investment.) Use the
production possibilities model to explain your answer. Other things being equal, an increase in
taxes on profits will reduce investment spending by decreasing expected after-tax profits.
Investment represents new capital formation, and thus less capital will be produced. The rate of
economic growth will be reduced by higher business taxes, other things being equal.

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Adam Smith (1723–1790): Scottish Economist

“I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good,” Adam Smith
once remarked. If he put little stock in good intentions, Smith did invest heavily in demonstrating that
selfish intentions could lead to public good. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), his first book,
Smith tried to show how altruism could come out of self-interest. In his second, more famous book, he

attempted to reveal how the self-interest of private individuals could be transformed by the sleight of an
invisible hand (the unfettered market) into social harmony and public benefit, producing the wealth of the
nation in the best of all possible ways. The result of this effort was An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes
of the Wealth of Nations (1776), perhaps the most influential economics treatise ever written, one that has
set the tone for capitalist ideology for more than two centuries.
As the title indicates, Smith attempted to examine the sources of the wealth of nations. He proposed that
first on the list of sources was the division of labor. Smith’s pin factory example of dramatic increases in
productivity possible through the division of labor has made its mark on virtually every textbook written
on the subject since. He went on to point out that the division of labor does not occur because individuals
possess an overall perception of its ultimate benefit to society. Rather, the division of labor occurs
simply because it is in each individual’s self-interest to specialize and to exchange: “The natural effort of
every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is
so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance . . . capable of carrying on the society
to wealth and prosperity.”
In addition to Smith’s famous “invisible hand” theme, the theme of individual economic freedom was
quite strong in The Wealth of Nations. He believed that any governmental attempt to guide or to regulate
actions of individuals in the economic marketplace would end up doing more harm than good. Smith was
especially harsh on legally protected monopolies. Smith’s critics contend that his model may have fit
England at the time he wrote his treatise, but it does not fit industrialized Western countries today—where
the state plays a large role and large corporations have replaced shopkeepers. Nonetheless, for many, The
Wealth of Nations remains a laissez-faire bible, and Smith remains a central figure in the development of
economic thought.

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Answers to Questions for Critical Analysis

Bankrupt Detroit Confronts the Opportunity Cost of Art (p. 32)
Why do you suppose that the individual put in charge of discharging the city’s bankruptcy has
explored auctioning off pieces of art held by the Detroit Institute of Art?
The individual put in charge of discharging the city’s bankruptcy has to confront the burden of repaying
the city’s outstanding debts and the provision of city services. Therefore, the opportunity cost of keeping
the art collection in the Detroit Institute of Art is the amount of those city expenses.

Is the Opportunity Cost of Homework Too High in France? (p. 34)
Is Hollande’s argument strengthened or weakened by evidence that a majority of French lowerincome and single parents view homework as a helpful mechanism for keeping some of their
children’s attention on learning during time outside school?
Hollande’s argument will be weakened if homework, which represents the opportunity cost of
spending time in school, is viewed as a helpful mechanism for keeping some of their children’s
attention on learning during the time not in school.

The Trade-Off from Redirecting Corn to Ethanol Production (p. 38)
As the share of the nation’s required ethanol production has increased each year, has the
opportunity cost of ethanol in units of food products per unit of ethanol increased or
decreased? Explain briefly.

As the share of the nation’s required ethanol production has increased, the opportunity cost of ethanol in
units of food products per unit of ethanol has increased because of the law of increasing additional cost.

Too Sick to Call a Doc? ZocDoc and Practice Fusion Can Help (p. 41)
What is the opportunity cost to people who spend time finding physicians and scheduling
appointments when the next-best use of that time would have been earning income instead?

The opportunity cost to people who spend time finding physicians and scheduling appointments is
the forgone income earnings for those people.



You Are There

Frustrated by the Opportunity Cost of Time Spent in Meetings (p. 44)
1.

Why do you think that some firms now require workers to stand during meetings?
Some firms require workers to stand during meetings in order to make it more difficult for the
workers to do other tasks, such as e-mailing.

2.

How can companies readily assign a dollar value to the opportunity cost of time
that employees spend e-mailing or meeting instead of getting work done?
Because employees are paid to do work that generates revenues for their companies, companies can
always assign a dollar value to the opportunity cost of time that their employees are not getting their
work done.



Issues & Applications

Specialization Shifts within U.S. Marriages (pp. 44–45)
1.

How might the fact that more females than males now obtain college degrees contribute to the
relative shift in earned incomes from husbands to wives?
College graduates tend to earn more money compared to people without a college degree. So, the
fact that more females than males now earn college degrees means that the relative earnings power
has shifted from husbands to wives.

2.

Each day, the average wife spends about 35 minutes more on unpaid housework than her
husband does. If the percentage plotted in Figure 2-6 continues to increase over time, would
you anticipate that this time differential would rise or fall?
If the percentage of wives earning more of the couples’ combined incomes continues to rise,
then the typical wife will spend less time on unpaid housework compared to her husband. As a
result, the time differential between the wife and husband will reduce.

2-1. Define opportunity cost. What is your opportunity cost of attending a class at 11:00 A.M.?
How does it differ from your opportunity cost of attending a class at 8:00 A.M.? (See pages
31–32.)
The opportunity cost of attending a class at 11:00 A.M. is the next-highest-valued use of that hour
of the day. Likewise, the opportunity cost of attending an 8:00 A.M. class is the next-highest-valued
use of that particular hour of the day. If you are an early riser, it is arguable that the opportunity
cost of the 8:00 A.M. hour is lower because you will already be up at that time, but you will have
fewer choices compared with the 11:00 A.M. hour when shops, recreation centers, and the like are
open. If you are a late riser, it may be that the opportunity cost of the 8:00 A.M. hour is higher
because you place a relatively high value on an additional hour of sleep in the morning.
2-2. If you receive a ticket to a concert at no charge, what, if anything, is your opportunity cost of
attending the concert? How does your opportunity cost change if miserable weather on the
night of the concert requires you to leave much earlier for the concert hall and greatly
extends the time it takes to get home afterward? (See pages 31–32.)
The opportunity cost of attending the concert is the next-best use of the time spent at the
concert. If bad weather extends the amount of time spent on an evening at the concert, then there
is an additional opportunity cost in the form of the next-best uses of that additional time.
2-3. You and a friend decide to spend $100 each on concert tickets. Each of you alternatively could
have spent the $ 100 to purchase a textbook, a meal at a highly rated local restaurant, or
several Internet movie downloads. As you are on the way to the concert, your friend tells you
that if she had not bought the concert ticket, she would have opted for a restaurant meal, and
you reply that you otherwise would have downloaded several movies. Identify the relevant
opportunity costs for you and your friend of the concert tickets that you purchased. Explain
briefly. (See pages 31–32.)
The opportunity cost is the cost of the single, next-highest-valued foregone alternative to the $100
spent on the concert ticket, which for your friend was a restaurant meal she otherwise could have
purchased and which for you was movie downloads that you otherwise could have bought.
2-4. After the concert discussed in Problem 2- 3 is over and you and your friend are traveling
home, you discuss how each of you might otherwise have used the four hours devoted to
attending the concert. The four hours could have been used to study, to watch a sporting
event on TV, or to get some extra sleep. Your friend decides that if she had not spent four
hours attending the concert, she would have chosen to study, and you reply that you otherwise
would have watched the televised sporting event. Identify the relevant opportunity costs for
you and your friend for allocating your four hours to attending the concert. Explain briefly.
(See pages 31–32.)
The opportunity cost is the cost of the single, next-best forgone alternative to the four hours
spent attending the concert, which for your friend was time that she otherwise could have
devoted to study and for you was time that you otherwise could have spent watching the sporting
event on television.

2-5. Recently, a woman named Mary Krawiec attended an auction in Troy, New York. At the
auction, a bank was seeking to sell a foreclosed property: a large Victorian house suffering
from years of neglect in a neighborhood in which many properties had been on the market for
years yet remained unsold. Her $10 offer was the highest bid in the auction, and she handed
over a $10 bill for a title to ownership. Once she acquired the house, however, she became
responsible for all taxes on the property and for an overdue water bill of $ 2,000. In addition,
to make the house habitable, she and her husband devoted months of time and unpaid labor
to renovating the property. In the process, they incurred explicit expenses totaling $65,000.
Why do you suppose that the bank was willing to sell the house to Ms. Krawiec for only $10?
(Hint: Contemplate the bank’s expected gain, net of all explicit and opportunity costs, if it had
attempted to make the house habitable. (See pages 31–32.)
The bank apparently determined that the net gain that it anticipated receiving from trying to sell
the house to someone else, taking into account the opportunity cost of resources that the bank
would have had to devote to renovating the house, was less than $10.
2-6. The following table illustrates the points a student can earn on examinations in economics and
biology if the student uses all available hours for study. Plot this student’s production
possibilities curve. Does the PPC illustrate the law of increasing additional cost? (See page
33.)
Economics
100
90
80
70
60
50
40

Biology
40
60
75
85
93
98
100

Each additional 10 points earned in economics costs a greater number of biology points. For instance,
the opportunity cost to the student of increasing points earned in economics from 60 to 70 is 8 points
forgone in biology, but the opportunity cost of increasing economics points from 90 to 100 rises to 20
points forgone in biology. Thus, the new PPC illustrates the law of increasing relative cost.

2-7. Based on the information provided in Problem 2-6, what is the opportunity cost to this
student of allocating enough additional study time on economics to move her grade up from
a 90 to a 100? (See page 33.)
If the student allocates additional study time to economics in order to increase her score from 90
to 100, her biology score declines from 50 to 40, so the opportunity cost of earning 10 additional
points in economics is 10 fewer points in biology.

2-8. Consider a change in the table in Problem 2-6. The studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s set of opportunities is now as
follows: Does the PPC illustrate the law of increasing additional cost? What is the opportunity
cost to this student for the additional amount of study time on economics required to move
her grade from 60 to 70? From 90 to 100? (See page 33.)
Economics
Biology
100
40
90
50
80
60
70
70
60
80
50
90
40
100
Each additional 10 points earned in economics costs a greater number of biology points. For
example, the opportunity cost to the student of increasing points earned in economics from 60 to 70
is 8 points forgone in biology, but the opportunity cost of increasing economics points from 90 to
100 rises to 20 points forgone in biology. Thus, the new PPC illustrates the law of increasing
relative cost.
2-9. Construct a production possibilities curve for a nation facing increasing opportunity costs for
producing food and video games. Show how the PPC changes given the following events. (See
page 35.)
a. A new and better fertilizer is invented.
b. Immigration occurs, and immigrantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; labor can be employed in both the
agricultural sector and the video game sector.
c. People invent a new programming language that is much less costly to code and is more
memory-efficient.
d. A heat wave and drought result in a 10 percent decrease in usable farmland.

ÂŠ2016 Pearson Education, Inc.

28

Miller • Economics Today, Eighteenth Edition

2-10. During a debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Senator Creighton states, “Our nation should
not devote so many of its fully employed resources to producing capital goods because we
already are not producing enough consumption goods for our citizens.” Compared with the
other labeled points on the diagram, which one could be consistent with the current
production combination choice that Senator Creighton believes the nation has made? (See
page 35.)
Point C
2-11. In response to Senator Creighton’s statement reported in Problem 2-10, Senator Long replies,
“We must remain at our current production combination if we want to be able to produce
more consumption goods in the future.” Of the labeled points on the diagram, which one
could depict the future production combination Senator Long has in mind? (See page 35.)
Point D
2-12. Senator Borman interjects the following comment after the statements by Senators Creighton
and Long reported in Problems 2-10 and 2-11: “In fact, both of my esteemed colleagues are
wrong, because an unacceptably large portion of our nation’s resources is currently
unemployed.” Of the labeled points on the diagram, which one is consistent with Senator
Borman’s position? (See page 35.)
Point A

2-13. A nation’s residents can allocate their scarce resources either to producing consumption
goods or to producing human capital—that is, providing themselves with training and
education. (See pages 36–37.) The table at the top of next column displays the
production possibilities for this nation:
a. Suppose that the nation’s residents currently produce combination A. What is the
opportunity cost of increasing production of consumption goods by 10 units? By 60 units?
b. Does the law of increasing additional cost hold true for this nation? Why or why not?
Units of
Production
Consumption
Combination
Goods
A
0
B
10
C
20
D
30
E
40
F
50
G
60

Units of
Human Capital
100
97
90
75
55
30
0

a. If the nation’s residents increase production of consumption goods from 0 units to 10 units, the
opportunity cost is 3 units of human capital forgone. If the nation’s residents increase
production of consumption goods from 0 units to 60 units, the opportunity cost is 100 units of
human capital.
b. Yes, because successive 10-unit increases in production of consumption goods generate larger
sacrifices of human capital, equal to 3, 7, 15, 20, 25, and 30.
2-14. Like physical capital, human capital produced in the present can be applied to the production
of future goods and services. Consider the table in Problem 2-13, and suppose that the
nation’s residents are trying to choose between combination C and combination F. Other
things being equal, will the future production possibilities curve for this nation be located
farther outward if the nation chooses combination F instead of combination C? Explain. (See
pages 38–40.)
Combination F entails production of less human capital than combination C, so choosing
combination F today would result in a smaller output shift in the production possibilities curve
than would be experienced if combination C were chosen instead.
2-15. You can wash, fold, and iron a basket of laundry in two hours and prepare a meal in one
hour. Your roommate can wash, fold, and iron a basket of laundry in three hours and
prepare a meal in one hour. Who has the absolute advantage in laundry, and who has an
absolute advantage in meal preparation? Who has the comparative advantage in laundry, and
who has a comparative advantage in meal preparation? (See page 41.)
Because it takes you less time to do laundry, you have an absolute advantage in laundry. Neither
you nor your roommate has an absolute advantage in meal preparation. You require 2 hours to
fold a basket of laundry, so your opportunity cost of folding a basket of laundry is 2 meals. Your
roommate’s opportunity cost of folding a basket of laundry is 3 meals. Hence, you have a

comparative advantage in laundry, and your roommate has a comparative advantage in meal
preparation.
2-16. Based on the information in Problem 2-15, should you and your roommate specialize in a
particular task? Why? If so, who should specialize in which task? Show how much labor
time you save if you choose to “trade” an appropriate task with your roommate as opposed
to doing it yourself. (See page 41.)
Yes, you and your roommate should specialize in the task in which you have a comparative advantage.
You should specialize in folding laundry and your roommate in preparing meals. If you fold a basket of
laundry, you must forgo the time that it would take to prepare two meals. For your roommate to fold a
basket of laundry, the time that it takes to prepare three meals must be given up. Suppose that you
“trade” folding a basket of laundry for preparing 2.5 meals. You gain 0.5 meals, which is equivalent to
one-half hour of meal preparation time. Hence, you save one-half hour for every basket of laundry you
fold for your roommate in exchange for an hour of meal preparation time.

2-17. Using only the concept of comparative advantage, evaluate this statement: “A professor with
a Ph.D. in physics should never mow his or her own lawn, because this would fail to take into
account the professor’s comparative advantage.” (See page 41.)
It may be that the professor is very proficient at doing yard work relative to teaching and research
activities, so in fact the professor may have a comparative advantage in doing yard work.
2-18. Country A and country B produce the same consumption goods and capital goods and
currently have identical production possibilities curves. They also have the same resources
at present, and they have access to the same technology. (See pages 38–41.)
a. At present, does either country have a comparative advantage in producing
capital goods? Consumption goods?
b. Currently, country A has chosen to produce more consumption goods, compared with
country B. Other things being equal, which country will experience the larger outward
shift of its PPC during the next year?
a. If the two nations have the same production possibilities, then they face the same opportunity
costs of producing consumption goods and capital goods. Thus, at present neither has a
comparative advantage in producing either good.
b. Because country B produces more capital goods today, it will be able to produce more of both
goods in the future. Consequently, country B’s PPC will shift outward by a greater amount
next year.

Introduction
Today wives earn more income outside the home
than their husbands in about 40 percent of marriages.
The average wife is spending less time on unpaid
housework, and the typical husband is spending
more time on such activity.
In this chapter, you will learn how opportunity costs
affect those decisions.

Did You Know That …
• The overall cost of raising a child to the age
of 18 averages about $300,000?
– A person who chooses to become a parent
must sacrifice consuming items when the funds
could be used for child-related expenses.
– The next-most-highly-valued alternative
to raising a child is the opportunity cost of
parenting a child.

2.1 Scarcity
• What scarcity is:
– It is the most basic concept in all of economics.
– It occurs when the ingredients for
producing things that people desire are
insufficient to satisfy all wants.
– It means we never have enough of everything,
including time, to satisfy our every desire.

2.2 Opportunity Cost, Trade-Offs,
and Choices
• Opportunity cost
– The highest-valued, next-best alternative
that must be sacrificed to obtain something
or to satisfy a want
– The next-highest-ranked alternative, not
all alternatives

2.2 Opportunity Cost, Trade-Offs,
and Choices (cont’d)
• Questions:
– What is the opportunity cost of attending this
economics class?
– What is the opportunity cost of attending
a concert by your favorite band?
– What is the opportunity cost of working out at
the gym?

Policy Example: Bankrupt Detroit
Confronts the Opportunity Cost of Art
• Detroit is the largest city in U.S. history to
enter into legal bankruptcy, with payments
on outstanding debts at $18 billion.
– The city’s art museum owns world-renowned art
pieces together valued as high as $20 billion.
– We can conclude that the opportunity cost of
keeping that art collection is a high as the
amount for the city to repay its debts.

2.2 Opportunity Cost, Trade-Offs,
and Choices (cont’d)
• Whenever you engage in any activity, using
any resource, you are trading off the use of
that resource for one or more alternative
uses.
• The value of the trade-off is represented by
the opportunity cost—that which you give
up to obtain something else.

2.2 Opportunity Cost, Trade-Offs,
and Choices (cont’d)
• Graphical analysis of opportunity cost
– The production possibilities curve (PPC)
represents all possible combinations of
maximum outputs that could be produced,
assuming a fixed amount of productive
resources of a given quality.

Figure 2-1 Production Possibilities Curve for
Grades in Mathematics and Economics (Trade-Offs)

Copyright ÂŠ2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

2-23

2.2 Opportunity Cost, Trade-Offs,
and Choices (cont’d)
• The production possibilities curve (PPC)
– Trade-offs: What would happen to the PPC if
you were more interested in getting a higher
grade in economics?
– Holding constant total study time: What
would happen to the PPC if you spent more
time studying?
– Straight-line PPC: Is it possible that the terms
of the trade-off might not be constant?

International Policy Example: Is the Opportunity
Cost of Homework Too High in France?

• Recently, the president of France proposed
an increase in the amount of time that
children spend in public school by half of a
day, from four days.
• He argued that the opportunity cost of
homework, which is the value of an extra
day of school, was too high to justify
choosing homework over the additional time
in school.

2.3 The Economic Choices a Nation’s
People Face (cont’d)
• Production possibilities assumptions:
– Resources are fully employed.
– Production takes place over a specific
time period.
– Resources are fixed for the time period.
– Technology does not change over the
time period.

What If … the government attempts to raise production of
all goods by redirecting more available resources to the
provision of health-care services?

• Recently, some politicians argued that
providing more health-care services will
generate greater production of all items.
• However, with a fixed amount of resources
and a given level of technology,
production of other goods and services can
only decrease if the provision of more
health-care services is expanded.

2.3 The Economic Choices a Nation’s
People Face (cont’d)
• Efficiency
– Productive efficiency is producing the maximum
output with given technology and resources.
– Alternatively, efficiency is the situation in which
a given output is produced at minimum cost.

2.3 The Economic Choices a Nation’s
People Face (cont’d)
• Inefficient point
– Any point below the production possibilities
curve at which the use of resources is not
generating the maximum possible output

• Law of increasing additional cost
– As society attempts to produce more of a
good, the opportunity cost of additional units of
that good generally increases.
– This law accounts for the bowed shape of
the PPC.

2.3 The Economic Choices a Nation’s
People Face (cont’d)
• Resources are not perfectly adaptable
for alternative uses.
• In general, the more specialized the
resources, the more bowed the production
possibilities curve.

Example: The Trade-Off from
Redirecting Corn to Ethanol Production
• Corn is a resource used in the production of
a number of food products and the ethanol
found in vehicle fuels.
• The government has required the
production of more ethanol for vehicle
fuels, and so, without any increase in corn
production, the United States faces a tradeoff in terms of a reduction in the production
of food items.

2.4 Economic Growth, Production Possibilities,
and the Trade-Off between Present and Future

• Economic growth
– Increases the production possibilities of
smart phones and tablet devices
– Is illustrated by an outward shift of
the production possibilities curve
– Over time, it is possible to have more
of everything.

Example: Too Sick to Call a Doc?
ZocDoc and Practice Fusion Can Help
• Scheduling a doctor appointment
involves an opportunity cost.
• Patients have increasingly use apps
provided by ZocDoc and Practice Fusion to
set up appointments with preferred or
appropriate physicians.
• Those companies have a comparative
advantage in handing such tasks.

2.5 Specialization, Comparative
Advantage, and Trade (cont’d)
• Absolute advantage
– The ability to produce more units of a good
or service using a given quantity of labor or
resource inputs
– Equivalently, the ability to produce the same
quantity of a good or service using fewer units
of labor or resource inputs

2.5 Specialization, Comparative
Advantage, and Trade (cont’d)
• Division of labor
– The segregation of resources into
different specific tasks.
– For example, in automobile production, one
worker puts on bumpers, another work puts on
doors, and so on.

2.5 Specialization, Comparative
Advantage, and Trade (cont’d)
• Analysis of absolute advantage,
comparative advantage, and specialization
is applicable to individuals, groups of
people, and nations.
• As a result, interstate trade occurs in the
United States, and international trade
occurs between nations.

2.5 Specialization, Comparative
Advantage, and Trade (cont’d)
• When nations specialize where they have a
comparative advantage and then trade with
the rest of the world, economic efficiency
improves and:
– Output increases
– Average standard of living rises

You Are There … Frustrated by the
Opportunity Cost of Time Spent in Meetings

• The average employee spends more than
three hours per week in face-to-face
meetings.
• Paul Betts, a software developer at
Microsoft, found that the opportunity cost of
a typical meeting was about $500.
• In frustration, he developed software apps
at GitHub to enable employees to engage in
online chat rooms that can eliminate e-mails
and face-to-face meetings.

Issues & Applications: Specialization
Shifts within U.S. Marriages
• Increasingly more married women have
developed a comparative advantage over
their husbands in paid work.
• The increase in women’s earnings power
has led to a reallocation of unpaid
housework from wives to husbands.

Summary Discussion
of Learning Objectives
• 2.1 Evaluate why everyone, whether poor
or affluent, faces the problem of scarcity
– Scarcity and poverty are not synonymous.
– Needs are not objectively definable.
– Wants are things on which we place a
positive value.

Summary Discussion
of Learning Objectives (cont’d)
• 2.2 Explain why the scarcity problem
causes people to consider opportunity
costs and trade-offs among choices
– Allocating resources to producing one good
means losing the opportunity to have another
one.

Summary Discussion
of Learning Objectives (cont’d)
• 2.4 Explain why the economy faces a tradeoff between consumption goods and capital
goods
– As more resources are devoted to the
production of capital goods, we can expect the
rate of economic growth to increase.

Summary Discussion
of Learning Objectives (cont’d)
• 2.5 Distinguish between absolute and
comparative advantage
– One finds one’s absolute advantage by
producing more of a specific good than someone
else who uses the same amount of resources.
– One finds one’s comparative advantage in the
activity that has the lowest opportunity cost.